LotS/The Story/The Right Tools/The Neuro-Phage
The Neuro-Phage
Step 1: Saw through the top of the donor's skull using an approved bonesaw (if you don't have one, click this *link* for a special offer). If the donor is still alive, make sure he or she is properly restrained and unable to offer any resistance. Thrashing may hamper the quality of your sawing.
Step 2: Take hold of the brain in the manner illustrated and ease it out of the head with a firm but gentle twist.
Step 3: Season to taste.
Step 4: Place on an appropriate serving plate.
(Note: A guide to which side dishes and beverages may best accompany the brains of different humanoid races can be found on our *website*.)
-- Recipe for 'Bachelor's Brain' in The Neuro-Phagy Cookbook
You fix an accusing glare on Ragnar. The Niflung spreads his arms in a gesture of confusion. But when you turn to Sun Xi you see that she isn't looking at your companions. She's gazing up into the night sky, horror on her face.
The Princess takes her arm and draws her back into the house. You follow, slipping through the door as it closes.
"He's coming!" the psychic says. "We have to... have to..."
A frantic, wordless murmur takes over her voice. Her head darts from side to side, as though searching for an object of defense or a way of escape.
"Mistress Sun, what's wrong?" the Princess asks.
Sun Xi's eyes meet yours. She steps towards you.
"Show you... Quicker..."
She places a hand on either side of your face, pulls you towards her, and presses her forehead against yours.
Visions flow into your mind, splashing from her brain to yours. These ones are clearer than those you experienced before, crisp and intelligible.
"Our connection is still strong from before," she whispers. "Can show you what I saw..."
Your gaze thrusts itself into the sky, above the house and the surrounding forest. It pierces the atmosphere, leaving Diogenes behind and threading its way further out into the system.
There... A black and red warship, voyaging through the star-studded mantle of space. Its aspect is vicious, predatory. It reminds you of an immense manta ray.
Your sight rushes towards the craft, and with a pilot's instincts you wince as you brace for the collision. But instead you penetrate its hull like a lance, intruding into its confines and wending your way along its corridors until you arrive in a dark cavernous chamber, and come face to face with the ship's master.
A fat, bloated form sits on a throne, the undulating mass of his flab bouncing against its stone arms as he bellows his orders. He's naked but for a red loincloth that dangles between his legs like congealed blood, displaying the veiny, pustulant skin stretched over his obese body in all its hideous glory. His feet are webbed, his hands clawed. Vicious teeth line his mouth beneath a snub nose and crimson eyes. A Snuuth, from one of that species' uglier, more vicious races by the look of him.
Hultex Quibberath. The name appears in your thoughts, and you understand that it was pulled from his -- passed to you by Sun Xi along the chain of psychic sausages that represent your linked minds.
He's a neuro-phage, a devourer of brains. And it's the brains of psychics that he finds most delicious. That's what was bringing him to Diogenes -- he was pursuing another psychic, a boy whose image flashes across your thoughts but strikes no chord of recognition. However, when Sun Xi stepped from her home his own psionic powers -- nowhere near as potent at hers, but well honed for this single task -- detected her. Now he's coming in search of the far more delectable morsel lodged within her skull.
The images vanish. Sun Xi's anxious face is before you once more.
"Stay here, Mistress Sun," you say. "I'll deal with this Quibberath."
Death Amid the Cherry Blossoms
"What's happened?" Wilex asks, his expression calm but alert on the communicator's holographic screen.
"There's a Snuuth warship approaching Diogenes. It's hostile. Destroy it. We're on our way to help."
"Understood."
If the Chief Assembler has any qualms about being instructed to engage a strange vessel, he gives no sign. You smile at the thought of how much faith he's willing to place in you. Then you end the transmission, and look to your companions -- who are arrayed beside a bed of red and purple orchids.
"We need to get back to the spaceport." You turn to the Princess, who's emerging from the house. "If-"
The communicator beeps in your hand. Wilex's face reappears.
"We've spotted the target. Moving to engage. But it's sent out scout ships. We weren't able to intercept them. You're going to have company down there." He pauses. "I can send a squad of battle bots to join you, but Diogenes will treat it as a hostile act."
"Don't worry -- we'll handle this ourselves."
You slip the communicator away and draw your sidearm.
"You all heard him," you say. "Get ready for a fight."
"Talia..." the Princess says.
The gunslinger reaches for one of her spare pistols. She tosses it through the air, into Princess Illaria's waiting hands.
Ragnar brandishes his axe and machinegun, a grin on his face. Lu Bu is attaching his sword and claw in place of his hands. As for Telemachus...
The prince presses the buttons on his backpack's straps. The metal starts to come apart, unfolding and widening. A red layer of plates tessellates around his limbs and torso -- assembling itself into a battlesuit. A silver device comes into being at his left arm, machinery slotting into place to create its shape. There's a flash, and a whir, as the laser-edged chainsaw activates.
"Told you it wouldn't blow up!" he says.
Several minutes later, the fireworks start. Colored lights zap against the distant sky, and tiny dark shapes flit across the stars in that slice of the heavens. A little bloom of fire announces the death of a ship.
"Diogenes' security forces are well equipped," Lu Bu says, "thanks to the great amount the planet's inhabitants pay to guarantee their solitude and safety. And it appears that they aren't willing to let unauthorized military craft go where they please."
You all watch the lightshow for some moments, and it seems as if your work may be done for you. Then a black shape skims over the forest far to your right -- beyond the wall separating Sun Xi's garden from the wilderness.
Smoke billows from the ship like a decorative plume. You see other signs of battle damage as well, souvenirs of its encounter with local law enforcement. Its flight is erratic, the vessel tilting from side to side before plunging into the trees amid a crashing of timber.
"Princess, Talia -- protect the entrance. The rest of you, with me."
The four of you run through the gardens, along the path that winds among the flowerbeds.
Orange eyes appear ahead of you, glowing in the shadows beneath the cherry blossom trees.
Aerial Assault
The Snuuth commandos resemble beetles in their grey, rounded armor -- its dimensions fashioned to accommodate the traditional gut-heavy girth of their species. Insects scurrying through the foliage, the orange orbs set into their otherwise featureless helmets glittering with malevolence.
Their aspects are fearsome, intimidating. Designed to cow their opponents. Against the little boy -- their originally intended victim -- and his family they would likely have worked well enough. But not against you and your companions.
"So much guts!" Ragnar laughs, as though to emphasize your unspoken thought.
The Niflung whirls round, and disembowels another of the commandos with a sweep of his axe -- cleaving through the armor with a screeching tear, as though it were a tin can. Another dose of intestines spills onto the grass, its ropey tangles joining the portion which had caused his exclamation. If you didn't know better, you'd think he was making a macabre collage...
You dodge a zapping blast of emerald energy and return fire -- catching a Snuuth right between his eyes. He drops to his knees, and topples face first into the diorama of innards.
Ragnar's roaring laugh echoes among the trees.
Lu Bu kills in silence, as is his wont. Gazing at him fighting beneath the blossoms is like looking into a Chinese legend, a tale of the great warriors who fought and perished in a prior age -- whose spilled blood mingled with the ink of scholars and poets to create their legacy. A long pile of bodies stretches before him. On some you can see the cracks in their armor where his sword found their brains or hearts. One has his dead, porcine face exposed -- the front of his helmet torn away by the robot's claw.
Telemachus is close by your side. The prince is unaccustomed to fighting in his new battlesuit, and you kept near to him out of concern for his safety. But you needn't have troubled yourself. He may lack the status of an unstoppable juggernaut outside of his mech, but his brand of passionate, ultra-violent carnage is as manifest as ever. As you look on, his laser-edged chainsaw works its way through a screaming commando's knee -- sending him crashing to the ground. The pistol in the boy's other hand finishes him off, out of either mercy or boredom.
A laser beam flashes by close to your head. It takes one of the Snuuth through the left of his orange eyes. You turn around, and look across the garden to where you left Talia and the Princess.
They're falling back under the nearby trees as though seeking cover. You glance at the sky above them, and see why the gunslinger attracted your attention with her shot.
Dark shapes are descending from the sky, the orange thrusters on their backs illuminating grey armor in their glow. More commandos -- with jet packs.
You sprint in that direction as the fire starts to rain down.
Space Sharks
"This is much more fun than shooting cartoon ducks!" Talia says.
Her pistols punctuate her sentence, each one claiming a life. Two Snuuth fall from the sky. One lands headfirst, his helmet hitting the path with a sparking crunch. The other bounces along the ground a few paces before lying still, like the world's most inept acrobat.
An explosion roars above you, capturing three of the commandos in its sphere and annihilating them. Pieces of metal rain down from the detonation, along with a few fragments of barbequed flesh.
The gate at the end of the path slides open, revealing the orchestrator of the welcome butchery. A man in a green uniform sprints through the widening gap, a bazooka on his shoulder. A large group of similarly attired men and women come through after him, their laser rifles zapping at the air as they run -- the volley's lattice of bright beams disposing of the last of the Snuuth.
"Sergeant Hobbs of the Diogenes Emerald Guard," the bazooka-toting man says, as he stops in front of you.
His comrades fan out behind him, each of them moving to one of the fallen Snuuth to make sure of their demise. There's a sporadic hissing of laser fire as some of the deaths are confirmed or brought about.
"Are there any more?" he asks.
You turn to your right. Telemachus, Ragnar, and Lu Bu are approaching.
"Looks like we got them all," you reply. "But there's a Snuuth warship up there."
"We know. Our fighters have been scrambled."
"My friends and I need to get to the spaceport," you say.
"You should leave this to the professionals. Our pilots..." He trails off, as he catches the look in your eye. "Your vehicle's the one on the road back there?"
You nod.
"Mills, Boggs -- take these people to their hovercar. Deactivate its flight restrictions and escort them to the spaceport."
"Those ships are awesome!" Telemachus says
He leans across to get a better look at the monitor in front of Talia, which shows a zoomed-in view of the space battle ahead.
"Armor, Tel! Armor!" she shouts, as his metal shoulder presses against her chest.
"Oh, sorry!"
He falls back into his seat.
"Take that thing off if you're going to scramble around in here!"
"They're Shark Ships," you say, looking at a similar monitor on the terminal in front of your pilot's chair. "Piscarian military craft. Probably bought on the black market."
"Are they good?" Telemachus asks.
"Very."
The scene on the monitors is growing larger through the window. You can make out Wilex's cruiser and Quibberath's warship. Smaller forms come into view around them a few moments later, amid the fabulous choreography of lights and explosions that only astral warfare can provide. There are the Shark Ships, battle bot fighter craft, and other vessels which look to belong to Diogenes.
"What's the plan, captain?" Talia asks. She reaches out for the gunnery controls.
"Destroy everything that isn't ours or Diogenes'."
Massacre of Minions
Quibberath's pilots are good. But you're better.
Sharks explode around you one by one, your aural implant spawning a triumphant symphony from their destruction.
"That's quite some flying, Vengeful Bitch," an unfamiliar female voice says over the communicator, which you assume must belong to one of the pilots from Diogenes.
For a moment you're confused. Then a lurking suspicion creeps into your mind.
"Talia..." you say, your eyes fixed ahead -- stealing between the window and the monitors.
"Yes, captain?"
Her thumbs tap the fire buttons at the end of her joysticks. A stream of laser fire slices a Shark Ship in half with pinpoint accuracy.
"You changed the ship's name in the logs, didn't you?"
"Sorry... I was playing around with it, and forgot to change it back. But you have to admit, Vengeful Bitch is pretty good."
Another voice sounds over the communicator.
"Our battle bots have gained entry to the warship and secured one of the hangars," Wilex says. "It's a custom craft, and I wasn't able to find a schematic. But we have squads working their way through it to look for the bridge."
"I know where it is," you reply.
You look over your shoulder, to where the rest of your companions are sitting -- operating the tertiary turrets.
"With your permission, Princess?"
She meets your gaze and nods.
"Take us in."
TALOS' forces have acted with their eternal precision. Gold and silver battle bots are stationed around the hanger at suitable firing points, their computerized targeting systems scanning with unceasing vigilance. If an enemy shows itself, a dozen lasers will meet it.
A new squad of bots is leaving its ship as you disembark, ready to join their brethren in securing the rest of the vessel and eliminating its master.
"Come with me," you say.
"Authority recognized," the robots chorus after a second's pause. "The Chief Assembler has placed us under your command."
With your new mechanical myrmidons leading the way in accordance with your directions, and your companions following, you exit the hanger and proceed into the warship's network of corridors.
The passages are gloomy, as you saw in your mind's eye. Their walls are fashioned from dark metal sculpted to resemble stone, making the inside of the ship seem like the caves of the Snuuth homeworld. An occasional light has been embedded in a wall, as though by a begrudging hand, and their dim glows provide the only illumination other than the almost toxic green which radiates from the occasional control panel or stretch of exposed cables. Musty, almost sickening air completes the sensation -- making you feel as if you're deep underground.
You encounter more battle bots along your route, each of them standing ready at the tactically appropriate stations they were assigned as the chambers and intersections were secured in turn. These robots were built for pragmatic calculations, lacking the egos and desires of human beings or those androids whose minds have been fashioned in your image. Thus they wait as silent sentinels without quibble or resentment, relinquishing the glory of the hunt and further combat.
That glory is left to you.
"This way," you say. "This is one of the corridors Sun Xi showed me. We're close now."
Ragnar greets this news with a grunt.
"About time. At this rate all the killing will be done before we get there."
But after a few minutes you hear the sound of weapons fire, along with the clanking of robotic bodies and the battle cries of organic throats.
You quicken your pace, moving down a broad, corpse-lined passage with swift steps. Dead commandos are strewn across the imitation stone floor, alongside the gold and silver debris of shattered robots.
There's a gaping doorway at the end of the corridor, flanked on either side by a mock-rock pillar -- part of its surface carved into the shapes of skulls, the rest inscribed with deep and unrecognizable alien characters. Battle bots fill its width, bustling and shoving as they try to force their way into the chamber. But they're making little progress, held at bay by more of the beetle-like Snuuth warriors -- whose orange eyes glow from amid the jostling scuffle. These particular robots are designed for ranged warfare. Either by chance or through tactical acumen the Snuuth fighters have succeeded in slowing their advance by hurling themselves into melee combat.
But they weren't expecting you and your companions...
Ragnar thunders into the back of the battle bots, pushing some aside and sending others staggering forward -- the impact of his charge moving the entire scrum, robot and Snuuth alike. The moment he has an opening, the second space is created between metal constructs and armored bodies, his axe fills it.
In a heartbeat the way into the room is clear. And as you and the battle bots charge into the cavern-like chamber, into the dark realm of intersecting laser fire and rushing assailants, you see a corpulent form sitting on a distant throne.
Hultex Quibberath
"Stop!" Quibberath cries.
His voice, startling in its melodic shrillness, cuts through the clamor of battle -- slicing through the groans of dying Snuuth and the sounds of crashing metal.
"Stop!" he repeats. The hovering cannons on either side of his throne, their mouths now black and inert, wobble in the air as though dancing to the sound of the word.
His minions fall back, withdrawing from combat and lowering their weapons. Even the one facing Ragnar does as bidden, and loses his head for his troubles -- when a swing of the Niflung's axe parts it from his body and sends it flying across the room.
Princess Illaria gestures to the nearest battle bots, her command relayed to the rest in an instant via their internal communicators. They too stop firing, though they remain in position, their weapons raised and ready to recommence the moment the order is given.
"If you're willing to surrender," the Princess says, "we'll hear you out."
The Snuuth makes a long whistle, as though he's an ancient water heating device announcing that its contents have reached their boiling point. It occurs to you after a few seconds that this is his mode of laughter.
"The Quibberath family does not surrender. But let us make a bargain. There is no need for killing. My troops are expensive. So are your robots."
The Snuuth whistles again. If he thinks the sound of his merriment is ingratiating, he's sorely mistaken...
"You are friends of the woman, yes? The woman in the cherry blossom garden?"
"Yes," the Princess replies. "We won't allow you to harm her."
"Very well. I did not know she had such powerful allies. A pity... Her brain would have tasted..."
Quibberath's red eyes close. A thick, slimy, purple tongue slithers out from behind his sharp teeth and licks his lips as though sampling the phantom flavor of Sun Xi's mind. The Princess makes a wordless sound of outrage, causing the tongue to retract and his eyes to open once more.
"Let us make a truce. I didn't come here for her anyway. Your friend is safe. Leave my ship, and I will leave her be. We both win, yes?"
"What about the boy?" you ask.
You look to the Princess, who returns the gaze with a quizzical expression.
"That's why he came to Diogenes. He came to eat a little boy's brain."
"Do you know this boy?"
"We don't."
"Then what does he matter to you? Besides, it's too much trouble now. I can't take him with all those soldiers in the way. I'll have to go somewhere else for my next feast. See? Even your precious stranger boy is safe."
"A moment," the Princess says. "I must speak with my friends."
You and your companions huddle together.
"Do people like him need to eat brains to live?" Talia asks.
"No," Lu Bu replies. "They eat them as a delicacy. Ones like this Quibberath, who feed on psychics, usually believe they can gain a portion of their victim's powers by doing so."
"Really?" Ragnar asks. "That works?"
"I don't know. I've never tried it."
"I say we kill him," Telemachus whispers.
"Agreed," you say.
"Yes," the Princess says.
"Suits me just fine," Talia says.
"I will gladly help take his life," Lu Bu says.
Your group separates.
"We've discussed the matter," the Princess says. "I don't believe our decision will be to your liking..."
Hultex Quibberath screams, a long sharp shriek that makes your teeth ache.
He falls to his knees, his left hand clutching the blood-spurting stump where his right one was attached before Lu Bu's sword removed it. The two floating cannons drop from the air behind him, and hit the floor with a rattling thud.
"No!" he cries. "No! Please!"
"I hate it when the bad guys beg," Talia says. "It always makes you feel like a murderer."
"Leave it to me then," Ragnar says.
He steps towards Quibberath's kneeling, squealing form.
"So this guy's a neuro-fag?" the Niflung asks.
"Neuro-phage," you reply.
"Sounds like an interesting diet."
Ragnar brandishes his axe. He looks over to where Princess Illaria is standing, with a growing look of disquiet on her face.
"Ragnar..." she begins.
"You should get back to the ship," he says. "I'll catch you up."
"But..."
You place a gentle hand on the Princess' arm, and guide her from the chamber. The others follow.
The rest of your companions are aboard the ship when Ragnar struts into the hangar. He sees you leaning against the craft, beside its closed door, and strides over.
"He reckoned you could gain someone's smarts by eating their brain?" he asks.
"Apparently so. Feel any psychic powers developing?"
"I don't think so." He pauses for a moment, as though attempting to scour his mind for any such inklings. "Do I look any smarter?"
You stare at the traces of brain smeared around his mouth.
"No."
He shrugs his shoulders.
"Was worth a try."